tl;dr: I officially graduated from college today! Also, terrorists are assholes.

September 11 is filled with a mix of mostly sad and angry emotions for most of us Americans who witnessed what happened in 2001. But for me, its not just meaningful because of those events. Let me explain:

On September 11, 2001 I was supposed to fly to Atlanta for work. Obviously because of what happened that morning, I didn’t go to Atlanta on that day. I went two and a half weeks later. Because of this, a series of events was set in motion that eventually led to me moving home to Colorado from Blacksburg, Virginia. This was a very good thing for me, and helped me get my life back on the right track.

On September 11, 2008 My abusive relationship ended. Thank god for that. I know, I’m atheist, but “thank goodness” just doesn’t express the depth of relief I felt when it ended and I was finally free of him and his negativity and cloud of oppression. And, I got my first iPhone the next day! Which was so fucking awesome and felt like a great symbol of my new freedom at that moment.

Now today, September 11, 2014 I just found out that I have officially graduated from college! Yep, I get to check the “college graduate” for the education question on surveys now! Holy crap does this make me so happy! I’ve been working on this degree for nearly 20 years now, and to finally have finished, well, its frankly amazing to me that my attention span held that long.

So, I’m gonna go update my résumé now and not dwell too much on the sadness of the past, because that would be letting the terrorists win. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let a tiny group of extremist assholes ruin this day for me.